


the light in your eyes keeps fading out

by Mx_Carter



Series: gonna dig six feet up tonight [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Age Reversal, Angst, Gen, sorry i just make everyone sad over tim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:56:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mx_Carter/pseuds/Mx_Carter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 30th August means something to every vigilante in Gotham. For Cass, it means another day unable to stop her best friend crying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the light in your eyes keeps fading out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catsaremyboyfriend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catsaremyboyfriend/gifts).



> I'm dedicating this to catsaremyboyfriend, because this is the opposite of what she asked for, and I'm a shit like that.
> 
> Title from Dancer in the Dark by The Rasmus

Stephanie teaches her about dates.

 

Stephanie teaches her about a lot of things; names and words, computer code, pop music and fashion, everything her father thought wasn’t important. But she’s had to survive on her own long enough to learn things for herself. Stephanie doesn’t sit her down and tell her what dates are and what they mean, but she still figures it out from her.

 

The first year she meets Stephanie, back when she doesn’t have a name, Stephanie breaks down in tears one morning without explaining why. Moving on automatic, she gets ice cream out of the freezer and, after some confusion, figures out how to work the DVD machine. She brings over a stack of DVDs that she remembers Stephanie watching, and then gets her a box of tissues. Later, Kara comes round and shows her how to make popcorn. She takes it over to Stephanie, who apologises twice before pulling her into a tight hug. She hugs back, and tries to keep her fear at bay. If something had gone wrong, Stephanie would tell her.

 

Stephanie won’t let go of her the whole day. It’s awful, because she can’t find the words to ask Stephanie why she’s so full of _grief-guilt-rage-gonegone **gone**_ , and she can’t make it _stop_. Kara can’t either, and when she sends her out to patrol, her eyes say _sad-scared-haunted- **useless**_. It must be terrible, she thinks, to be so used to being invincible, only to discover you’re not.

 

No-one gets hurt on her watch. She’s decided that that’s the kind of person she is. Walking away from the Clocktower knowing she can’t do anything about Stephanie’s hurt is like the time she fell into the sewer system in some European city she never learned the name of, and had to wade through stinking mud to get to safe ground.

 

The next year she knows Stephanie, Kara calls her one morning and asks her to swing by the Clocktower. When she gets there, Stephanie and Damian are sitting on the couch, arms around each other, while Kara prepares them food. There are already tear tracks on Stephanie’s face, and Damian’s is blanker than she’s ever seen it.

 

She goes to make popcorn with Kara in the kitchen and, while she’s watching her radiate _fear-love you-wish you weren’t hurting_ , she remembers that the last time this happened, the orange and black Halloween decorations just had started to appear in shops. As she goes back to her Cave that evening, she notices Halloween decorations in a few of the shops she passes. She makes a note of the day number and month, before getting ready for patrol.

 

The next year, on the same day number and month, it happens again.

 

She quickly determines not to ask why that date is so terrible, because she refuses to be the person who makes Stephanie sad. Enough people do that already. Damian, Jason and Bruce are also out of bounds, because Damian always disappears from the patrol roster on that day and comes back the next night projecting _don’t touch me_ , Bruce sends more people than ever to the hospital, and Jason looks so _lost-unsafe-they don’t really want **me**_ and she physically can’t bear it. Even the Birds of Prey are subdued, either avoiding the Clocktower entirely or coming by with food and faces full of _I know-I know-I’m hurting just the same as you_.

 

On the third year, Alfred comes around to her Cave and makes her dinner before patrol. She wants to stop him, tell him she ate a large lunch and she’s _fine_ , but the man she’d come to think of as unbreakable is stiff and quiet, and from him she reads _let me do **this** -let me help you **-** let me **help someone**. _ She lets him cook her delicious food, then glares at him until he sits down and eats some too. It’s a small accomplishment, but on the worst day of the year she’ll take what she can get.

 

 This date makes her family hurt like little else can do, and she wishes more than anything that it was something she could fight. What good are her skills if she can’t stop the people she loves from hurting?

 

She dreads the end of summer now.

 

Along the way, she notices that dates are important to the people she loves, that they remember the days when bad things happen and mourn them every year. There is a date where Kara looks more vulnerable than a Kryptonian ever should, a date where Bruce disappears off his patrol routes to visit a graveyard, and comes back projecting the grief of a child. There is, she supposes, a date when she killed for the first and last time. She doesn’t know it, and she’s glad.

 

The 30th August happens five times before she finds out what it means.


End file.
